DreamBudapest (Urban sustainability campaign + videos)

Cities are hot-spots when it comes to climate change and environmental degradation – producing 50% of the world’s waste, and 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Yet cities are also emerging as the drivers of change, producing some of the most novel and innovative responses to battling climate change. How can we harness this positive potential?

The ARTS (Accelerating and Rescaling Transitions to Sustainability) EU project aims to create a novel understanding of how transition initiatives in cities can contribute to the path towards a low-carbon society. Based on the experiences of transition initiatives in five European cities, ARTS is collecting a pool of practical and useful experiences and knowledge that can be used to help accelerate transitions across multiple domains, through new tools and governance approaches.

As one of the case study cities, Budapest plays a unique role in showcasing the possibilities and unique challenges of transition initiatives in a post-socialist state. Through a partnership between BEE and the Central European University, we jointly carried out the ARTS Budapest activities, which included research, communications and workshop components.

BEE developed an overarching communication frame for the project, that aimed to create a vision of a sustainable city – the concept of „DreamBudapest”. The idea was to showcase the Budapest transition initiatives selected for the ARTS project, and through the visualisation of their dreams, introduce their important work – but also to energize and inspire local change-makers and the general public.

The story of „DreamBudapest” came to life through a social media campaign that included a series of portraits, videos, and infographics shared through both Facebook and Instagram platforms. The campaign was launched to coincide with the more technical ARTS workshop, and served as an excellent way to keep up the energy and positive outcomes from the workshop, and beyond. The campaign has had wide appeal in Budapest, helping to create awareness of the project and the initiatives – but most importantly, acting as an inspirational platform for citizens and change-makers alike.